Episode #213 – Christ And The Bride

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow Special guest: Carole Nelson

(M) Well, this is another early morning podcast call, and I’ve confiscated Carole Nelson into this as well, because we have… We’re still on many aspects of this issue of the Husband that Fabiola brought to us. Let me read her comment. She said, “While reading John 4, I was touched, and I always see the Samaritan woman forgot her need of water, and was no more thirsty. She was pleased and nourished because she was drinking from the true Source, but Jesus was not hungry anymore either, assuring the disciples that doing the Fathers will.” She made the comment while here that He left, He was no longer hungry, and she was no longer thirsty; she left the water pots. So we’re going to talk about that issue later, but we’ve got to go back to the Husband. And when I told about my own exposure by the Lord of the woman at the well, I just kind of thought nobody else would get it, or would not have seen it. But we’ve had quite a response to the issue of Husband. And we went on with it; we went on. And so I want to establish this morning something about the Husband. Some weeks ago Carole got a new Bible. She and Don went to the bookstore, Bible store, isn’t that right Carole? (Carole) Uhmhmm. (M) And tell us what you found in this, what this Bible is that you picked and what you found. (Carole) Well, the Lord knows me, and since it was on sale of course, for half off, that was my motivation. (Carole laughs) But I got home and in the very front of the women’s Bible there is the Katubah. And it’s the contract, it’s the marriage, Jewish marriage contract required from the groom and read aloud during the marriage ceremony. And it’s a one-sided contract. Anyway, I called Martha when I read this because ah, it’s just so incredible. I underlined this one little phrase, “The Bride is not required to sign because she receives his commitment.” (M) Ok, I’ve gone back to Ephesians five after reading the, about the Katuba, and I’m going to tell you about it in a minute. But let’s go back to the scriptures. Eph.5:22, “Wives be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord.” Our subjection as women is to the Lord, and that’s all, just receive, be subject to and receive. “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is also head of the Church, He Himself being Savior of the body. But as the Church is subject to Christ, so the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present to Himself the Church in all her glory, no spot or wrinkle, but as she would be holy and blameless. So husband s ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.” And then he goes on, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined, or cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Then this is the explanation. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the Church.” So the Lord set up even from the creation of woman, out of the rib of Adam, created the male and female to represent Christ and the Church. It’s just throughout the scriptures. And the entire responsibility, and this is not American, it shocked me when you told me about it; this is, this is Jewish. And in the day when this was, the days when this was established, it was for material provision, food, clothing shelter; the groom promises to provide that, and the bride receives it. Her submission is to receive that care. It’s not submission to his dominion and tyranny. It’s not submission… The husband is not supposed to rule as a lord, or as God, demanding that she be who he says she should be, but that her submission is to receive. That is the Bride of Christ; her submission is to receive. And the husband is to be the entire source. The Lord calls for it here in Ephesians. He calls for the man to be so filled with Christ that he deals with his wife in the same way Christ does and will, and does at this time. So the Katubah was designed primarily for women, and there was a contract. It was traditionally written in Aramaic, but it came to include respect for the woman. Now this was in a time frame of history when woman was chattel and property, not a person, but chattel. And so it was completely counter in the Jewish nation, to all other cultures in the world. It was cherishing the woman as that valuable and that you, you feed the golden goose, as the fairy tale goes. But we have not concept of this in America. In America the marriage ceremony is a mutual agreement; and because we haven’t based it on the scriptures, and on the Hebrew culture and tradition. But it speaks to me of Christ. It’s supposed to be a picture of His absolute commitment to bring… And it’s in Hosea two, also. I’s a commitment to bring us to complete purity. It’s His responsibility, not mine, not even yours, John, not a man’s, not Don’s, not anyone’s. He is the Husband now, and if we receive Him as the New Covenant, making Him the head, then He is free to function in all the responsibilities of the Husband. It’s so wonderful. And the Lord brought it to Carole, and then to us, and I’m just now getting it Carole, that to make anything else a source of that, even the Body of Christ, is, I suppose it’s rebellion against His office as Husband. And so it’s just, it’s kind of exploded that the degree to which He is Husband is right here in the scripture. We tend to make it a law for marriage. I know so many places where men make it a law for the woman, you submit to me, the man. No, it’s not that at all. You’re supposed to do what I the man say, because God gave me that dominion; oh no, He gave you the responsibility. (J) Right, right. (M) And there are few men who realize that, no many. Ah I think even today, I met a Jewish man, an orthodox Jewish man, and he so functioned this way. He married a Christian woman. And he was so godly, and so…the Holy Spirit was really on him. But he understood the role of the man. And I’ve never met anyone quite like him; I’ve never recovered from having met him and talked to him a couple of hours. So, but I can’t but remember him because he knew that, he knew that basis that a woman is to be listened to, cherished, respected, valued. And he was even aware; I asked him the question, do you know that in the Christian world men, husbands, believe they are masters? And he threw up his hands and said oh, it’s worse than that. Christian men can think they are God, and the cruel God of the Old Testament. And that’s amazing to me, that in vast Christianity men are either giving in to women, or they are so tyrannical over women. And so, that Jewish base is so wonderful to know and understand how they view it. So we have someone in our midst who’s a Christian, married a Jewish man. And I asked someone to ask her, did you… And I remembered her search for the Katubah, but I didn’t know what the Katubah was. And she had the option as a mixed marriage, to sign her own covenant, and she chose not to sign it. But he signed this enormous commitment to her, that really only Christ can fulfill in a man, or… But He fulfills it to every woman, and He fulfills it to every man if we will let Him make us like the woman at the well. Ok, here we go to the next phase. Anybody got Husband things to share? (Martha laughs) Ok, ok. Here’s what I see. Oh, now Carole, this came from you too, you rich woman you. Where is the Spurgeon? Let me just read one more thing from this document. “For all the world the Katubah stands as a monumental example of the protection of the rights of women. God’s plan for women in marriage is manifested beautifully in this one-sided document in which the groom makes his commitments to his bride. His signature, together with those who witness the document, is required. The bride is not required to sign because she receives his commitment.” (J) It’s amazing, it really is. (M) I wonder if this enormous responsibility, that I’ve seen for many years when God showed me a man’s responsibility, this is designed to break him, because no man can do that without Christ. (J) Hmhmm, hmhmm. (M) Oh, so, I wanted to read that, and then we were meeting the last day of the year, and we’d had a tremendous anointing among us. And I’ll do a podcast about that later, but it was about strength. And somehow Carole had just read Spurgeon, and it was about hunger and thirst. And she was so excited to understand what it means to be hungry and thirsty. (Carole) Ok, well, I just… This was, well this was morning, I thought it was evening. But anyway, as I was reading this, it started with John 7:37, “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.” In the devotion Spurgeon says, “Proclamation is made most freely, that every thirsty one is welcome. No other distinction is made but that of thirst.” And this is what just grabbed me. “Whether it be the thirst of avarice, ambition, pleasure, knowledge, or rest, he who suffers from it is invited.” I went, “Oh my God, that’s me, that’s me!” Oh, I am so aware of how I don’t thirst for Him, how my, my need is a thirst for Him, and I thirst for so many other things. And I read this, and it jumped off the page, and I got so excited. (M) You qualified. (Carole) I qualified. (Carole is laughing) I qualified. Oh ‘my-gosh’. “The thirst may be bad in itself, and be no sign of grace, but rather a mark of inordinate sin longing to be gratified with deeper draughts of lust.” Hello. “But it is not goodness in the creature which brings him the invitation. The Lord sends it freely, and without respect of persons.” Oh, hallelujah! (M) So that was our, our great word from the Lord the last day of 2010. And it’s so wonderful, but it took me back to the woman at the well, because what Jesus addressed was thirst. If any man thirst let him come and drink of this well, and he’ll never thirst again. Rather he’ll be full of the water himself, from within. And so the reason He could reveal Himself to her was that she was honest, though sinful, about her thirst, hunger and thirst. She was searching for something. And I’m going to tell in about three more podcasts what she was really after. (Martha laughs)

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